Dead Letter (Digger)

by Warren Murphy

  She glanced at Digger without apparent interest and then rapped her knuckles on Mrs. McBride’s desk. Digger saw that, oddly, the hands were too big for the body. She said, "So long, Mrs. McBride."

  "Have a nice day, Dave," the secretary answered.

  Dave? Digger looked at the blonde carefully, then said, "Yeah, Dave. Have a nice day."

  The young woman stopped, looked at Digger, then stepped closer.

  "Do I know you?" she asked in a throaty voice.

  Digger shook his head. "I just heard your name. I wish everybody a nice day."

  Even transvestites, he thought. This young woman was no lady. The heavy makeup, even in the daytime, was needed to hide the faint blond stubble on the chin. Dave was Dave, not Davida or Davina. It was Dave. For David.

  "What do you teach?" Dave asked. "I don’t think I’ve seen you around."

  "Abnormal psychology," Digger said. "The usual. I love your dress. But isn’t it a little early to be wearing your best?"

  "I’m having this identity crisis," Dave said.

  "I can understand why."

  "No, there was a cast party last night after the senior show."

  "You weren’t Uncle Vanya, were you?"

  "No. Anyway, after the show we had a dinner and they gave out awards from the drama department. They were voted by the students."

  "What’d you win?"

  "Best-dressed woman," Dave said.

  "That’s nice."

  "And best-dressed man. I couldn’t really deal with it, so I had to come in and see Jayne."

  "She help?" Digger asked.

  "She always does."

  "How?" asked Digger.

  "Well, she showed me how to look at it. It wasn’t nasty. It was meant to be a compliment and, anyway, if I’m going to walk around wearing women’s clothes, I’ve got to be prepared for things like that. It’s a price I have to pay for freedom. It’s just that some people don’t understand. Can I have one of those cigarettes? I left my clutch bag in my room."

  "Sure," Digger said, handing the young man a cigarette, watching his bony knuckles as he held it.

  "What’s your name?" Dave asked. "I’m into psychology. Maybe I’ll take your course next year."

  "Ebing," Digger said. "Krafft-Ebing. I’d love to have you."

  "Well, one never knows, do one?" Dave said with a wink.

  "This one do," Digger said.

  "Dave," a voice called from the corner of the room. "I’m sorry, but Mr. Krafft-Ebing and I have a lot to discuss." Digger saw a tiny brown-haired woman standing in the doorway to the private office. Her hair was streaked with tinges of honest sun blond and her face was tanned and healthy looking. She wore enormous jade hoop earrings and a bulky sweater to which she did justice anyway. Her plaid skirt was short enough to show off nice legs.

  "Okay, Jayne," Dave said. "See you soon. Thanks for the cigarette, Krafft."

  "My pleasure," Digger said. He got up as Dave walked out of the office and strolled toward Dr. Langston, who looked at him with distaste.

  "Come in," she said quietly, then stepped aside and let Digger precede her into the office.

  She closed the door behind him, leaning on it a moment as if sealing out Mrs. McBride’s human scent, then said, "Just who the hell are you? You’ve got one helluva goddam nerve, screwing over my patients’ heads that way."

  "And you’ve got a helluva temper," Digger said. "Since when is it bad to tell somebody you like its dress?"

  "Not an it. David is a he. A very nice, decent young he. And just who the hell are you anyway to pass judgment on anybody?"

  "Easy, Doctor," Digger said. "You really have to learn to deal with your anger. Can I sit down?"

  "Go ahead. What do I care? I asked you, who are you?"

  "You don’t believe Krafft-Ebing?"

  "No, I don’t believe Krafft-Ebing and I don’t believe Sigmund Freud, either."

  "How about Sigmund Romberg? I can yodel most of ‘The Desert Song.’"

  He saw no answering glint of humor in her angry eyes, so he said, "My name is Julian Burroughs. I’m a friend of Allison Stevens."

  "Why didn’t you say so?"

  "I don’t know. I thought you might be ready for some comic relief after a rough morning."

  "It didn’t work," she said. "What about Allie?"

  "I know you’ve treated her in the past. She told me."

  Doctor Langston walked around behind her desk and sat in her chair, without acknowledging that she had or had not treated Allie.

  "Did you know Professor Redwing?" Digger asked.

  "Of course. This is a small school. Everybody knows everybody. What is this all about?"

  "Do you know anyone who might want to have killed Professor Redwing?"

  Her face showed shock. With the anger gone, it was a nice face. "He died in an accident," she said.

  "Do you know anybody who’d want to kill Professor Redwing and would want to kill you, too?"

  "Stop asking questions and answer some. What is this about?"

  "I love it when you’re angry," Digger said. He reached in his pocket and took out the chain letter Allie had received and handed it to the woman. She leaned forward, took it, started to read, then settled back into her fabric-covered armchair. She read it from top to bottom three times, then held it up toward the gooseneck lamp on her desk.

  "It’s a photocopy," Digger said. "No typewriter marks."

  "Who wrote this?" she asked.

  "I don’t know. I was hoping you could help. Allison got it in the mail yesterday."

  "You don’t take this seriously, do you?" she asked. She put the letter on the desk blotter in front of her. There was an apple on the corner of the desk. A yellow pad with writing on it was on the other side of the desk, near the telephone.

  "I didn’t yesterday," said Digger. "I figured it was somebody with a stupid sense of humor. But when Redwing got run down last night, I decided we’d better take it seriously."

  "Just who is ‘we’? Who are you?"

  "I told you, I’m a friend of Allie’s. I was up here visiting with her and I just got involved."

  "Do you do this kind of work? I thought destabilizing students with problems would be more in your line."

  "That’s just my hobby," Digger said. "My life’s work is getting the bad guys. Any ideas on who wrote that letter?"

  She paused for a moment. "There are a lot of disturbed students," she said. "You never know."

  "You think then it was a student?"

  "I don’t know. Maybe and maybe not."

  "How about some obvious nut case like John Paul Rampler?" Digger asked.

  "I wish you wouldn’t characterize people as nut cases," she said.

  "I’m sorry. It’s just force of habit from dealing with so many of them. How about him as our phantom correspondent?"

  "I wouldn’t have any idea," she said.

  "You don’t seem very disturbed about getting a death threat," Digger said.

  "I don’t know that it’s a death threat. It looks like a tasteless prank."

  "I want to make this very clear," Digger said. "Allie received that letter yesterday afternoon. Twelve hours before Redwing bought the farm. You got that? The operative word is ‘before.’ Now isn’t it reasonable to assume that whoever wrote that letter might have had something to do with Redwing’s death?"

  "Maybe. If anybody had anything to do with Otis’s death. If it weren’t just an accident. Who is this first name that’s crossed out? Wally Strickland?"

  "He ran Rick’s Place just off campus, where the students hang out."

  "Oh, yes. I know the place. I read about that in the campus paper. But he died before the letter came, didn’t he?"

  "Yes," Digger said. "But his name was on a list in Allie’s dormitory building. A list of people the world could do without. Allie put it there."

  "Oh, dear," Dr. Langston said. "She must be so upset."

  "She is, but nobody’s threatened her life. Why aren’t you
upset?"

  "Because I don’t take this seriously. Why do you?"

  "Because I don’t know yet whether it’s serious or not, but I’d hate to have your death on Allie’s hands. Or mine, for that matter, because we didn’t warn you. Do me a favor?"

  "What is it?" she asked.

  "Humor me. Make believe that you think this really is a life-and-death matter. You know how us looney-toons get if we’re crossed. Play along."

  She smiled at Digger and leaned back again in her chair. She was probably thirty-five, Digger thought, but she looked younger than that. She didn’t look like a kid; the face had too much character for that.

  "I’ll try," she said.

  "Professor Redwing. What was he like?"

  "Otis was a good professor."

  "Popular with the students?" Digger asked.

  "Not very. Why are you focusing on students all the time?"

  "Because there are more of them around than anything else. Why wasn’t he popular with the students?"

  "Otis was a Navaho. He felt he had something to prove. He was a stickler for detail, a tough marker—somebody who brooked no nonsense in his classroom. He wanted students to stand up when they talked to him. That kind of thing."

  "That just makes him a pain in the ass," said Digger. "Not really a candidate for killing."

  "I can’t believe we’re doing this," she said. "Killing? What killing? It was an accident."

  "Please," Digger said. "You promised to humor me."

  She sighed. "All right. Five more minutes."

  "So did anybody hate him worse than normal? Maybe not just students. How about faculty or administration? An ex-wife? A jilted lover?"

  "None of those things," she said flatly.

  "He was gay, wasn’t he?" Digger said.

  "How’d you know that?"

  "Something in your tone of voice," Digger said.

  "I’ll have to watch my tone of voice," she said. "Yes, he was gay."

  She leaned forward, picked up the letter again and reread it. Then, as if rejecting all Digger’s premises, she tossed it back onto her desk blotter.

  "Do you know anybody who would want to harm you?"

  "No."

  "You are universally loved by one and all?" Digger asked.

  "Yes."

  "You’re marvelous," Digger said. "You and Otis didn’t have any mutual…well, enemy is too strong a word. Some one person who didn’t like either of you much."

  She shook her head, but there was a pause before she did. There was somebody.

  "Now this person who didn’t like you and/or Redwing, would this person have any reason not to like Allison?"

  "I don’t like the way you jump to conclusions," she said.

  "If you think I’m bad, wait until the cops arrive. They can really jump to conclusions. Come on, you and Otis had somebody who didn’t like either of you much. Who was it?"

  "I don’t know what you’re talking about and I do have students to see. While playing twenty questions with you was great fun, I…"

  "I’m almost done," Digger interrupted. "Let’s be hypothetical. If you and Redwing did have somebody who didn’t like you both, would that same hypothetical person not like Allie?"

  "This is absurd."

  "All right," Digger said. "What about your ex-husband?"

  "What about him?" she asked, a little defensively, a little too quickly.

  "He saw this letter."

  "And?"

  "And he didn’t tell you about it," Digger said. "Isn’t that unusual? I mean, unless your relationship with him is like mine with my ex-wife. Don’t you two get along?"

  "That’s not really any of your business, Mr. Burroughs, is it?"

  "Yes, it is. My friends all call me Julian."

  "You probably hardly ever hear the name then," she said. "Probably Henry didn’t tell me about it because he thought it was a prank."

  "Even after Redwing died?" Digger asked.

  "I really couldn’t say," she said.

  "You understand, Doctor, that I’m going to have to talk to the police about this letter."

  "If I have to talk to them, I’ll tell them the same thing."

  Digger rose from his chair.

  Doctor Langston said, "Would you ask Mrs. McBride to send in my next appointment?"

  "Sure," Digger said. "You know, I’m sorry you don’t get along with your ex-husband." He leaned forward and retrieved the chain letter from her desk and put it in his pocket.

  "Please," she said.

  "Perhaps you two should try counseling," he said.

  Chapter Six

  "Dean Hatcher, you remember me?"

  "Sure, yesterday. What’s the name again? I’m sorry."

  "Burroughs," Digger said.

  "That’s right," Hatcher said, looking at him as if Digger should be grateful for having his recollection of his own name confirmed. "Come on in."

  Digger followed the dean of students to the office in the right rear of the brownstone.

  "Pretty big building for you to be rattling around in by yourself, isn’t it?" Digger asked.

  "Yes, it is, actually. But it goes with the territory. The dean of students is supposed to be accessible to the students. A tradition here. We guard our traditions jealously."

  "Tradition should be worth about five thousand extra a year per student," Digger said.

  "More like ten thousand, but who worries about things like money?" Hatcher said. He waved Digger toward a chair and sat down behind his big oak desk.

  "This is about Redwing, isn’t it?" he asked.

  Digger nodded. "I was wondering what you thought about it."

  "I don’t know. An awful accident. But coming so soon after that letter, I don’t know."

  "Any suspicions?" Digger asked.

  "I…wait, do you think that letter might really have had something to do with this?"

  "Don’t you?" asked Digger.

  "You mean that…maybe if we had told Otis, he might have…he might not have had that accident? Is that what you’re saying?"

  "I’m saying we don’t have any real way of knowing it was an accident," Digger said. "We got a letter that put him on somebody’s hit list and then he was hit."

  Hatcher shook his head, then stuffed a pipe into his mouth and started fumbling with a box of wooden matches. Digger hated pipe smokers. They spent so much time gouging and cleaning and packing and tamping and lighting and puffing, they didn’t have any time left for the really important things in life, like drinking. He had never met a pipe smoker with a drinking problem. There were only so many things you could do with your mouth within twenty-four hours and pipe smokers were all booked up.

  "But that fool letter," Hatcher said when he finally had the pipe lit. "That fool letter was addressed to Allie. It said…this sounds ridiculous even to be talking about…."

  "Redwing’s dead. That’s not ridiculous, that’s a fact," Digger said.

  "The letter said Allie should kill him."

  "We don’t know what we’re dealing with," Digger said. "Maybe your ex-wife might have a different opinion, but I don’t know that psychos have to be logical and coherent."

  He noticed Hatcher bristle when he mentioned "ex-wife."

  "Why a psycho?" Hatcher said.

  "Why not? I don’t think it’s your normal everyday killer who sends out announcements of coming events. Sounds like a psycho to me."

  "If it’s not just a prank," Hatcher said.

  "But you didn’t tell Redwing about it?" Digger said.

  Hatcher shook his head. As he did, the plume of smoke from his pipe turned into a soft shimmer and he seemed fascinated by it.

  "And you didn’t tell Doctor Langston?"

  "No."

  "Why not?" Digger asked.

  "Because we don’t talk a great deal."

  "Even when her life is in danger?" Digger asked.

  "I didn’t know her life was in danger. And neither did you. If I had, of course I would have talke
d to her. And Otis, too."

  "Why were you so disturbed yesterday when you brought that letter to Allie?"

  "Was I disturbed?"

  "Your hands were shaking," Digger said. "Why was that?"

  "I don’t know."

  "When Jayne told me that you two were exes, I thought it was because you saw her name on the list," Digger said.

  "It’s Jayne, is it? You seem to have gotten to know my ex-wife rather well rather quickly."

  "I have a gift for making fast friends," Digger said. "If seeing her name on that list didn’t upset you, what did?"

  "I’m sure I don’t have the faintest idea. Coffee nerves, maybe. You told Jayne about the letter?"

  "Yes."

  "What did she say?"

  "She seemed inclined to disregard it."

  "As am I," Hatcher said.

  "Otis Redwing might disagree with both of you," Digger said. "You never thought of calling the police about the letter?"

  "Mister Burroughs, what the hell are you getting at? The letter was a goddam prank. You thought it was, I thought it was, Allie thought it was. Call the police for what?"

  "When did you hear Redwing was dead?" Digger asked.

  "This morning when I woke up. My housekeeper told me."

  "When we talked yesterday, you didn’t tell me that Jayne Langston was your ex-wife," Digger said.

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "Frankly, because I don’t think my marital status is any of your damned business. I didn’t yesterday and I don’t today. Now if you’ll please…"

  "Of course," Digger said. "I’ll be talking to the police about this so you’ll be hearing from them, I guess."

  "Fine," Hatcher said with a disgusted look on his face. "Just what we need. More gumshoes tippy-toeing around campus."

  "Let’s just hope they outnumber the homicidal maniacs," Digger said.

  When he came out of the dean’s building, Digger paused atop the steps to light a cigarette. He glanced next door toward the dorm and saw Allison Stevens standing on the porch. She was talking to someone who was seated on the railing, his back to Digger. Her face appeared flushed.